For the past few weeks, I have been writing once a week with a small group. It has been a great creative experience, as everyone turns up with writing ideas, prompts. What we have basically done so far is timed writing, and it has thrown up some interesting results. It is always fascinating to see how based on the same prompt, different people come up with radically different stories!

Today, one of the word prompts was  Skin, and we had everything from an artist painting his masterpiece on a woman’s body, to a pregnant girl being massaged by her mother for relief. In my piece, suddenly the voice of a psychopathic sixteen-year-old boy took over, who has just skinned a cat, and would like to skin girls some day. Ouch.

But  the point is that I’ve discovered that group writing without exchanging critiques can be quite a pleasant experience, and very helpful. It is very stress-free and people give and receive advice or share problems. Exactly what I would look for in a group of writing friends. We plan to introduce critiquing, but gently, and only for those who want it.

Any of our readers have an experience with writing groups?

I will come to you
In the still of the night
And I will crush you
With the burden of sight
And you will understand
The shadows in my heart
The fury of my conviction
Will cause your heart to quicken
And then, my dear
You will see you want me here
~~ Haunted — Jewel   ~~

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What would your character do (your current one, an old MC, or a brand new one you create today) if s/he knew a stalker was in the house?

I want to go dark for the end of the week. I’m in that kind of mood….

Try to keep it about half the length of Suzanne’s prompt from yesterday. We’ve had so much advice lately (which has been fabulous), but I’ve missed the writing part of this blog. So have at it!!

I’ll post mine in the comments, as well.

Image Source

Since winning her first writing competition at a young age, Eden Tyler, has only fallen more in love with the written word. She uses her English, Psychology, and Sociology backgrounds to create depth to her own stories and novels while contributing to and running websites about writing. This is what fulfills her, along with working as Co-Editor for Fuel Your Writing, but she also enjoys the freelance work that puts food on the table (and that ever-essential roof overhead) for her family.

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*So, this song gets to me every time I hear it. And I doubt I’m the only one.

I’ll bet others on here have wanted a boyfriend, girlfriend, heck–even a close friend to stay. Just one more day. One more night.
To ‘lie’ a little bit longer.

How would a character of yours react/deal with this situation?
Write a short story depicting his/her pain and progress–or downfall. I’ll post mine in the comments, as well.
Have fun with this!

Since winning her first writing competition at a young age, Eden Tyler, has only fallen more in love with the written word. She uses her English, Psychology, and Sociology backgrounds to create depth to her own stories and novels while contributing to and running websites about writing. This is what fulfills her, along with working as Co-Editor for Fuel Your Writing, but she also enjoys the freelance work that puts food on the table (and that ever-essential roof overhead) for her family.

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So again, I will post a picture, and a story. (Story will be in comments.) You add your own story, inspired by the picture.

Here we go:

Picture found here.

I said to Sarah that I’ll be posting a writing exercise today. I found one on a site that I frequent when in search of kick starts, so here it is. I’m going to work on it and report back. If any of you ladies feel like taking it up, please do a post or comment on how it went!

Write a long detailed passage in continuous time that includes opening car doors and turning the key in the ignition and putting the car in gear, or maybe someone getting up in the morning or going to work or putting on his socks and shoes. Write in super-detail.

Lay this aside and come back at least an hour later. What part do you definitely want to cut away? Does some of the detail actually seem interesting and worth saving? Can you revise it in a way that shows what is happening inside the character so that the boring detail is the merest scaffolding for the real interest. You might make it funny, or perhaps as the character cleans his teeth he has a flashback.

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I scrolled down and read Gunnisac’s post. I tried to comment, but the comments keep disappearing. So, I’ll leave my comment in this post.

Hi,

You sound just like me. Sarah will tell you that I’ve been in despair the last week, have not done much writing. Yesterday I tried speed-writing and that helped (this is the only way for me to un-block myself). Sometimes the strangest things will set you off.

So maybe you can take Sarah’s writing-prompt in the last post and let yourself into a burst of speed-writing and see what comes out? I’m hoping it will work for you just as it does for me, like magic

Hope you go great guns again soon!

Best,

Damyanti

Okay, here is an exercise that we can all do. Copy the sentence. Paste it in a word doc. and then write. Post what you get on here in the comments. We will do this at least once a week.

Cold arctic air slammed into my face….

And now, take it and run!